Is S.T.A.L.K.E.R a RPG?

The Gamespot video review initially piqued my re-interest in this title ( i stopped followiing it a while ago). I'm pretty interested in it now, looks like something I could sink my fangs into for a while!

Having finished it now (best ending) I can add a few things.

There is a point near the end in which the game suddenly gets very linear and feels much more like a traditional FPS. This area will also be rather difficult for people who arent used to first-person shooters. At least this part have great scenery but will probably be a turn off for thoose who hate shooters.

There are many endings in the game. To get the best endings you need to put down the effort to understand whats going on and solve a few mysteries. If you know enough you expand your choices in how you wish to finish your game. If you were sloppy though you will get an ending based on what you did throughout the game.

Originally Posted by narpet
But in psychological terms (my field of study before becoming a programmer), any game that allows you to feel as if you are playing the role of the main character is a "role" playing game.

I don't care to drag the "what's a role-playing game" debate to this thread, but…

This discussion reminds me of the debate that went on for some time in the Pen and Paper circles. Some deemed rules to negatively impact on role-playing, while others claimed that freeform role-playing (the simple act playing a role) and role-playing games (the act of playing a role in a game with specific rules) were different things. The latter presented the argument that if people wanted to role-play without rules then they were obviously free to do so but they were likely trying to do it in the wrong place since role-playing games always required a modicum of rules that define a character and permit it to succeed or fail at its role. Without those rules, it was just pretending to be someone and was very much the same as acting; and a role-playing game was not only about that.

I find myself agreeing with that notion in videogames. In psychological terms a game that gives the player a measure of control enables him to play a role in said game. But to elaborate on your quote, I'd say that: any game that allows you to feel as if you are playing the role of the main character is allowing you to role-play, but is not necessarily a role-playing game. After all, you can role-play a slow, dimwit or Combine-friendly Gordon Freemam in Half-Life 2 but there's nothing there in terms of rules, character development or feedback that registers and reacts to whatever role you're trying to play. The advent of things like sandbox design and emergent gameplay allows players to act differently - to play a role differently - in several contemporary games, but those games can't understand you're giving a different meaning to your actions or placing them in a different context.

You can all keep talking about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. now

Originally Posted by txa1265
I am hearing a lot of 'I think' or 'I've read' stuff, but is anyone here playing yet? I got notice that my copy ships tomorrow so I'll be playing by end of the week …

Yes, been playing some since Thursday night. I got the German/Austrian/Swiss Limited Edition (a.k.a Radiation Pack - copy no. 8,269 out of 17,777 here… dammit, I sooo wanted to have no. 1337 or 666 or something catchy like that ). The game is fun so far. The atmosphere is great, the exploration of the zone is fun, the factions are interesting and it all just feels very much alive because stuff is definitely happening all around you even if you aren't watching, i.e. the game world kind of has a life of its own.
I would definitely classify it as a shooter. There are some elements that traditionally stem from the RPG genre but that doesn't automagically turn S.T.A.L.K.E.R. into an RPG hybrid IMHO.

Anyway, whatever it is, it's good .

Now I need to decide if I will spend my hard-earned cash in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or in ArmA…

If you feel unsafe about it, wait awhile and see what others have to say. I might be biased and I do not want people to waste money on my behalf.
I tend to play any game with a story and enjoy playing someone else in a virtual world. Im not so picky about the gameplay. I play alot of RPG's simply because they tend to have the best stories and the most choices in how you want to play, but I have also played and enjoyed many first-person shooters. But im play them for the story/experience, not the action.

I have now read quite a lot about stalker and the conclusion seems to be that its a short game (only 10 hours) that has less RPG than oblivion. Also its not entirely open ended. The main quest doesnt make sense and there are bugs. 8 / 10 is the averige score for this game. Its scary though and the graphics are nice.

I decided to skip it. Ill check it again if they release an addon/gold version or I can find it extra cheap (and patched to max) from som store.

Originally Posted by zakhal
I have now read quite a lot about stalker and the conclusion seems to be that its a short game (only 10 hours) that has less RPG than oblivion. Also its not entirely open ended. The main quest doesnt make sense and there are bugs. 8 / 10 is the averige score for this game. Its scary though and the graphics are nice.

That is the most common conclusion of someone who pushed one of the main quests but forgot the other. Quite a few of thoose people out there.

I did it properly. Only if you manage to uncover the whole truth you get the whole game and the true ending which makes perfect sense. And it takes more than 10 hours to get that ending, unless you have done it before.

Great post JemyM! Sounds like a bit similar to Deus Ex, a game i might enjoy!

Originally Posted by JemyM
I might be biased and I do not want people to waste money on my behalf.

No danger of that happening - I actually have to thank you for the post since it puts into perspective some of the things I was looking forward to in the game It just happens ArmA has also been a long time entry on my wishlist and now I have to see just how each game would suit me better at this moment. There's also tech issues - I have to see how a ~2.4Ghz Dual Core behaves with either game before I venture into them.

Originally Posted by JemyM
STALKER is a game which overall purpose is to make you feel like you are in a post-apocalyptic world in which you control your own fate. That's the heart of the game, that's the first thing the game is trying to offer. The first person perspective is just the interface that was chosen for how to play it.

So, JemyM, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or antagonistic here at all --I'm truly curious. What is it about this game that makes it an rpg for you and not a shooter, yet in other threads (forgive me if I am misrepresenting your position) you relegate Diablo and Titan Quest to hack and slash, "twitch" gaming. To me there is nothing more "twitch" than an FPS, where to the best of my knowledge the game is composed of killing things coming at you from all sides for ninety percent of the game. I can take the same paragraph you wrote above and substitute TQ and it would be completely true:

"Titan Quest is a game whose overall purpose is to make you feel like you are in a mythological world in which you control your own fate. (Through your class choice) That's the heart of the game, that's the first thing the game is trying to offer. The third person perspective is just the interface that was chosen for how to play it."

No, there are not eight different endings in TQ, but to get there in STALKER, you are presumably following eight distinct paths, just as you can in TQ by creating different character builds, emphasizing different skill sets and playing with different attacks, weapons and spells. It just isn't about the quests or the story, it's about the stat crunching. In STALKER, you say you have the quests and story, but not the stats. So what's the difference?

I am willing to believe that STALKER is a complex, involving game and that it has many rpg elements. If we were to sit down and compare element for element, I think that the lowly "action rpg" genre shares or reflects almost all of them. That does not make Titan Quest an rpg. Unless you're willing to stretch the definition to include all games with rpg elements--So let me use your own quote to support my argument :

… The larger and more realistic games become the more they blend genrés with each other. Keeping to the core terms is a practice that belongs in the nineties.

You finished it already!?! How many hours a day do you spend gaming JemyM?

Since I'm considering buying this game, I would like to ask a question that may sound a bit strange…

Is the tension in this game very high? Are there many moments when you get frightened/scared by something suddenly jumping out of nowhere or by expecting that something will suddenly jump out of nowhere… or anything similar to this?

Several FPSs made me quit playing because they made me too scare. I hate it, I hate horror movies and the like. So I would like to avoid that.

Thanks ;]

Danicek: You should really see the movie "The Descent". It's about women climbing.. slowly.. a very relaxing experience.

(slightly kidding )

As for Stalker, if it's anything like Deus Ex or System Shock, I've got to play it! Such hybrids are definitely more interesting than "classic FPS" games (how's that for yet another genre? )

You can play it much longer than 10 hours - 10 hours is the minimum play time for the main quest without doing sidequests.

If you increase the difficulty level quests take a longer time, too.
BEWARE ! - I am playing on <Stalker>-difficulty (2nd easiest) and enemies are everywhere - going from point A to point B can be a quest by itself.
If you don't play intelligent and stealthy -> it's dead and reload time.

Originally Posted by Role-Player
No danger of that happening - I actually have to thank you for the post since it puts into perspective some of the things I was looking forward to in the game It just happens ArmA has also been a long time entry on my wishlist and now I have to see just how each game would suit me better at this moment. There's also tech issues - I have to see how a ~2.4Ghz Dual Core behaves with either game before I venture into them.

I did not even know about ArmA before you mentioned it. I loved Flashpoint due to it's open environment. Me and my friend did alot of silly things like driving around with our spec ops in a small car and blowing up tanks with far more explosives than required, or when infiltrating a base at night, steal a tank and demolish the whole base (which wasnt the intended solution).

So far to me this game is the most similar to Might and Magic 6 (the only RPG M&M game I've played) in RPG land. It has 'areas' that you travel between and explore, each area is kind of open and infested with dudes and has quest givers/loot/towns. Just imagine it with dues-ex/systemshock2/farcry-esque FPS mechanics instead of turn-based dungeon master'ish hack'n'slash and a far more dynamic, alive world and ai eco-system in each area instead of packs of things standing around.

Danicek, yeah I would avoid it in that case. The game is big on atmosphere, and it has horror elements. From what I've played so far I'd say most of the time it's just oppressively bleak, but it's punctured by intense little pockets of scaryness/horror in dark places.

Originally Posted by Danicek
Since I'm considering buying this game, I would like to ask a question that may sound a bit strange…

Is the tension in this game very high? Are there many moments when you get frightened/scared by something suddenly jumping out of nowhere or by expecting that something will suddenly jump out of nowhere… or anything similar to this?

Several FPSs made me quit playing because they made me too scare. I hate it, I hate horror movies and the like. So I would like to avoid that.

Thanks ;]

That one is hard to answer really. Most of the time you'll fight human enemies in STALKER, mercenaries, bandits, etc. and that certainly isn't overly scaring. But to be honest there are also quite some horror elements in STALKER. You have to venture into long forgotten laboratories and facilities, radioactive villages and haunted bunkers. And not everything that lives in there will give you a friendly warning before it shows up. So yup, most likely there will be moments when the tension is very high. If you enter a building with a nest of bloodsuckers or a poltergeist, or if you're running through the night in the middle of a thunderstorm, and suddenly hear the barking of dogs then that could be something that might scare you.
The game is not overly bloody btw. - but if you are a very sensitive person who can be scared easily then this might not be the right game for you… then again I was playing the game in a dark room with headphones.

From my point of view the developers managed to create an awsome atmosphere. It's probably the best thing about the game. The zone looks and sounds just fantastic. I mean, you probably seen some videos. Everything is rotting and rusting away, many places are radioactive. Then the wind that rolls over plains at day, the thunderstorms at night… STALKER just creates an extremly tight atmosphere. A personal highlight was a facility that was haunted by a "poltergeist" - quite spooky, but I loved it.

I'm not a big shooter fan really, I played Half-Life and Doom 3 for a while, but I never really finished these games because they are just straight forward shooters where you can never stray from the linear path really. STALKER is different in that aspect. Sure you can concentrate fully on the main storyline, but then you'll just miss a lot and it will feel as if the game is linear. You'll not only miss a lot of awsome looking places, you might also miss a few really neat items. Just to give you an example: I was doing some fairly stupid sidequest for some guy who had lost his family weapon in the so called "Wild Territory." After I recovered his weapon and brought it back to him, he tells you in the very last sentence that there is a barricaded house and that he thinks there could be artefacts in there. Well, you can ignore that comment - or you can try to find a way in and find something really nice…
Unfortunately not everything is positive about questing in STALKER. The number of subquests is fairly limited (or let's say the kind of subquests), and very often doing them will just be not worth it. You'll usually get money or an artefact as a reward, but the problem is that money is fairly uselss in STALKER. You can get most of what you need from your enemies, and there really is no need to buy stuff from a vendor. That doesn't mean doing a subquest once in a while isn't worth it just for the fun of it. But the fact that traders are fairly useless is a weak point really.
Stashes are also such a "weak" point, although not quite as useless as traders. Whenever you search the body of an enemy you might get the location of a secret stash (a place where he hid stuff). You can later on see that location on your PDA. Sometimes you'll find useless stuff in these stashes, sometimes great stuff… so searching them out is usually worth it. One of the things I did not like however was that you can also find these stashes before you'll get their location from an enemy, but in these cases the stash will be empty - from a logical point of view that doesn't make all too much sense… it's not thaaat bad, but still could have done better…

STALKER is not the ultimate game, and no, it's not a real RPG. But it's a damn good shooter with RPG elements. Combat is fairly thrilling (unfortunately it gets a bit too easy in the middle part of the game), and enemy AI is also quite good - not perfect, but pretty good. I'd say "not perfect, but pretty good" is a fitting description for many elements in STALKER. To give you an example: STALKER offers the ability to sneak. It's not as perfect as in THIEF, but it exists, and it works. I mean a lot of shooters offer the possibility to sneak nowadays, but in very few you'll actually make use of it. In STALKER however sneaking does make sense. In the beginning of the game sneaking is fairly useless, I admit that. You won't have a weapon with a silencer so your gunfire will draw the attention of enemies anyway. But later on once you got a high damage weapon (yup weapons have stats - damage, accuracy, handling, and rate of fire) with silencer sneaking works fairly well. I for once sneaked into a facility to steal a weapon… big fun. I can only recommend not to play STALKER in easy mode… you'll just tend to outgun your enemies which actually works if you're playing on easy. Chose a more difficult setting, the game will be much more challenging - maybe even a bit hard in the beginning, but it will pay out later on in the game.

Combat AI is okish, I'd say. It's sometimes brilliant, most of the time good, and on rare occasions sucky. But overall I'd say it's still much better than what you'll encounter in the average shooter. It's just great if the enemy AI plays along and gives you a challenging experience. But it's not all gold that glitters… I also had situations were the AI was acting not so brilliant. Example: I crawled onto a tower so I could shoot at a bunch of bandits that were sitting around a fire. I had a sniper rifle with a silencer and was able to single shot them one after another. When I killed one the others just stood there and did nothing although their comrade just dropped dead in front of them. That however only worked if I killed an enemy with a single shot. But from my experience such "bugs" are really the exception.
On the other hand there are some neat details in terms of combat AI. Mutated pics for example will drag bodies to a safe place where they can feast on them. Dogs will only attack you if they greatly outnumber you, etc.

Combat is great… well, not in general, but in STALKER. Seldom has shooting at stuff been so much fun. Taking cover actually makes sense… you will use it alot. Sprinting makes sense, so it's really great if you're not encumbered. Unfortunately you'll very often carry way too much, because you just can't leave that rifle behind. A great new thing - bleeding. Depending on the damage of your enemies weapon you'll begin to bleed when an opponent hits you. Sometimes the bleedings stops after a few seconds, sometimes it gets worse… in any case you can stop it with a bandage. The tricky thing about bleeding is that you won't be able to run if you bleed. Believe me, that can be quite nasty if you're running away from a horde of mercenaries… suddenly you get hit, and you realize how you're getting really slow while your enemies are catching up.

Overall I'd say STALKER is mainly about combat and exploration. There are no deep dialogues, and questing really plays a minor role (except for the main storyline quest - these are actually pretty good!). Maybe STALKER is also a bit about equipment… in that aspect it's a bit like Diablo. For a shooter STALKER features a wide variety of weapons, armor, and other equipment. So you'll always hunt for a better weapon, or better armor. Some weapons can be upgraded by attaching a silencer or grenade launcher, some have that stuff inbuild. Sometimes you'll even come about some kind of special weapon or armor that is quite rare. For example a sniper rifle that is lighter than other models of that particular type… or a shotgun that does more damage, a suit that has an inbuild healing device, etc.

Artefacts can also be fun. You can attach a maximum of five to your belt (although you can carry as much as your weight limit allows you), and they usually offer advantages in exchange for minor disadvantages. One might add to your endurance but is slowly poisoning you with radiation, another might add to your bullet-proof cap but makes you bleed more easily. There are also rare artefacts that offer just positive effects… you might have to search a bit though.
Talking of artefacts - I found anomalies to be big fun. Usually they are easy to spot, and you'll hear a peeping sound when you come close to them, but it's almost unavoidable to step into one once in a while, especially if it's dark, you're in the middle of combat, or if you want to reach that secret stash that some other stalker hid behind a whole bunch of anomalies.

Not sure what else to say. I can only emphasise that STALKER is NOT a real RPG, but it is also not a linear shooter. It's much better than DOOM 3, Half-Life 2, and all these other linear shooters which will offer no surprises and no possibility to explore. But STALKER also has its flaws… I mentioned a few of them.
Overall it is the atmosphere that makes this game a really good game. If you liked System Shock and Deus X chances are good that you will also like this one. STALKER is very similar to these games in terms of gameplay, being not as linear and offering more possibilies to explore creepy and strange places.

Originally Posted by magerette
So, JemyM, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or antagonistic here at all --I'm truly curious. What is it about this game that makes it an rpg for you and not a shooter, yet in other threads (forgive me if I am misrepresenting your position) you relegate Diablo and Titan Quest to hack and slash, "twitch" gaming. To me there is nothing more "twitch" than an FPS, where to the best of my knowledge the game is composed of killing things coming at you from all sides for ninety percent of the game. I can take the same paragraph you wrote above and substitute TQ and it would be completely true:

"Titan Quest is a game whose overall purpose is to make you feel like you are in a mythological world in which you control your own fate. (Through your class choice) That's the heart of the game, that's the first thing the game is trying to offer. The third person perspective is just the interface that was chosen for how to play it."

No, there are not eight different endings in TQ, but to get there in STALKER, you are presumably following eight distinct paths, just as you can in TQ by creating different character builds, emphasizing different skill sets and playing with different attacks, weapons and spells. It just isn't about the quests or the story, it's about the stat crunching. In STALKER, you say you have the quests and story, but not the stats. So what's the difference?

I am willing to believe that STALKER is a complex, involving game and that it has many rpg elements. If we were to sit down and compare element for element, I think that the lowly "action rpg" genre shares or reflects almost all of them. That does not make Titan Quest an rpg. Unless you're willing to stretch the definition to include all games with rpg elements--So let me use your own quote to support my argument :

My first roleplaying game (1984) the swedish Dragons & Demons, based on the BRP system told me a theory of what a rpg is, and I have kept that with me ever since. In a roleplaying game you take control over an alternate personality in a fictional scenario. How your virtual personality deal with the conflicts and situations is up to you.

To qualify as a roleplaying game in my book I need an emphasis of dealing with situations my way. A pre-fixed solution or no personal/moral questions immedietly disqualify a game from the rpg genré in my book.

In many rpg sessions I have played I had a characted I had not made myself, no numbers, no experience points no dice and no fighting. Still I was given almost 100% freedom to control my character within the limits of my virtual personality. That's still a roleplaying game in my book.

Points, like experience points for killing monsters, was the "game" part of Dungeons & Dragons. Most roleplaying games scrapped points for killing a long time ago. Even D&D3 suggests giving players points for beating the challenge, where killing might not be the best solution.

Hack & Slash or "rollplaying" is using the rules but do not contain any roleplaying. Therefore Diablo is as much RPG to me as DOOM. In Diablo it might be fun to chase points, but so is the case of Tetris, Pac Man or Space Invaders.

Titan Quest offers absolutely no alternate ways to solve quests, no moral choices, no alternate endings, nothing that decide who you are. Titan Quest is not a roleplaying game at all to me. Neither is Diablo.
Both Divine Divinity and Dungeon Siege 2 qualify though.

Originally Posted by JDR13
You finished it already!?! How many hours a day do you spend gaming JemyM?

About 6-13 hours per day, depending on responsibilities, work and interest.